


the ever-approaching thunder

by NotusLethe



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationship, MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 26, UST, warning is for a little bit of gore, wrote this in a frenzy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 22:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15277284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotusLethe/pseuds/NotusLethe
Summary: "With blood."Caleb doesn't know how to move forward from this. If only he had not been so persistently useless.





	the ever-approaching thunder

**Author's Note:**

> MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 26

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
the power of your intense fragility  
_e.e. cummings - somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond_

 

 

    Caleb rubs his fingers together. There's soot on his skin; it smears into the whorls of his fingerprints, dark, stained. He can't remember-

    -he put his hand against the log, licked by flames long quenched, just enough burned for crisp flakes of charred wood-

    He kneels down and reaches out. He catches sight of his hands and they are so dirty, Caleb yanks them back. He scrubs his fingers against his soiled coat, trying to clean them, and mostly succeeds. He looks at his hands.

    They are weak. They are all shades of useless. He has dozens - _dozens_ \- of spells ready to be beckoned and did he use them? No. Like the coward he is, like the waste of breath and space he is, he stood and watched.

    It's only been a day ago that someone stood in front of him, poised to take any damage cast his way. Caleb: worth less than a handful of dirt - someone to shield. The acrid sting of bile rises in his throat, but he holds it back. Why should he be allowed to feel emotions like that. How did he earn the right.

    The first touch is against that vibrant coat, some sateen material embroidered a thousand times with blasphemous thread, and it is rough and it is soft and his sliding fingers hit a patch of damp, already going hard and stiff as it dries. He pulls back. His fingers are red.

    The best thing about burning people alive is there's no blood. They are only ash.

    He reaches forward again. His grip is stronger this time, and he finds purchase in the edge of the coat, fingers grazing the interior which still burns with body warmth. Caleb almost loses his grasp.

    But his hold tightens. He pulls, just a bit, as though he can drag this body with him. He has nowhere near the strength, but none of them do, not really. He'll have to get Schmidt to carry it. The very thought has him gagging once more. He can't allow - he can't have an impersonal spell-

    "Back the fuck up," Beau says. Her voice is rough and threaded with something that makes it tremble and pitchy. She's hovering over Caleb and has her strong hand bearing down on his shoulder. Caleb tries to lean out of the way.

    His hand doesn't release. He pulls open the coat. Now the wound is exposed, and there's a twisted mess of innards, mushy red pulp that hardly looks like it ever belonged to a living creature.

    Beau is so noisy when she vomits. Caleb sniffs. He is made of stronger stuff in this case. She kneels next to him, wiping at her mouth, and for the first time he sees her face. Her pallor is sickening, yellowed in shock, the whites of her eyes showing all around, clear tracks down her cheeks as tears wove a path through the dirt.

    He's not sure he'll ever have it in him to cry again. Even if someone deserves it so much.

    Beau gets a handle on herself, and she's shaking so bad as she puts her arms under the back and legs, like she is really going to pick it up alone. Caleb sticks out his (worthless, useless) arms to help. They meet eyes.

    "Don't you-" But whatever scathing comment she has disappears. Beau gives a curt nod, and they move the body toward the horses. It's slow going. After all, Beau is more agility than strength. And Caleb is a detriment in whatever he does.

    Nott has the horses ready. Keg is possibly nearby, but who can give a shit about her right now. She's too immersed in her own trauma to even know what they are going through. How could she ever even fathom understanding what they just lost.

    He and Beau and what must be a mage hand from Nott maneuver the body onto one of the horses. They must rest.

    They cannot rest here.

    They move away. Caleb doesn't recall the seating arrangements on their few horses. He doesn't know where they go. He cannot see. Somehow, Keg must've rode one of the horses because she gets down and reaches for the body. She is so strong. She is so strong and it meant nothing when it needed to.

    Caleb understands that. He often fails at what he is needed to do.

    Keg goes down hard on one knee. Nott still only comes to her nose, but she bares her teeth and hisses. Keg doesn't reach out again.

    There's a tent set up. Someone did that. Not Caleb, of course. All he has bothered to do is exemplify uselessness. It is the only thing he excels at other than murdering the fuck out of people.

    Beau and Caleb manage to get the body into the tent. The rivulets on Beau's face have returned, growing wider, spreading, until her whole face will be clear, cleansed in pain and grief. She stumbles as she exits the tent, flailing out a hand to hold onto something. He takes a hold of it. Her fingers nearly crush his, and her throat chokes out some sort of noise: a strangled cry, a muffled sob.

    It strikes him for the first time that she is so much younger than he is. He wants to tell her that she'll learn. She'll see. Eventually, the only constant in your life is the things you could not do, the things that you have done, and they haunt you, own you, define you.

    "Maybe I can…" Beau glances around, like someone will stride out of the forest with an answer, with a solution. The frigid breeze ripples through the evergreens, the soft patter of needles hitting the ground. "I can't fucking think."

    "You should rest," he says, raspy. He knows what this voice is like. He makes it, sometimes, when he inhales a lot of smoke, when he's burning things. Sometimes, he doesn't even have to use fire.

    Beau guffaws, twirling in a wild circle with her arms spread. "You think I can fucking rest? You think I can fucking rest after that? Fuck you, man. Fuck you- I can't- What the fuck-"

    That sound erupts from her throat again. Caleb slides his thumb over his bottom lip, slicking the skin with honey.

    "I suggest you get some sleep, Beauregard. There will be much to do tomorrow."

    He can see her struggle. Her face twists with rage and defiance and not a little hatred. Good. Things he is used to. After a few moments of fighting, Beau's shoulders slump, and her whole body follows, the proud lines of her stance breaking, that fine tremble suffusing her limbs.

    "I set up the other tent," Keg says in her gruff voice. She pulls at Beau's arm and the girl follows listlessly.

    Nott, watching from a shadow, edges toward Caleb. He would be surprised to see that she has also been crying, but he's not sure he can feel that emotion just yet. "You should sleep too, Caleb."

    He extends his hand to pat her head, but when he sees how bad it is shaking, he withdraws, curls his fingers into fists and holds them against his side. "I am, ah, wired from everything. I will take first watch, ja? Then, I will sleep."

    Nott is not convinced. He slicks his thumb with honey again. She catches the movement, because she is so clever and subtle and he can't believe he conned her into taking care of him when he can't offer her anything worthwhile in return, but she doesn't speak. Nott merely nods her head, and disappears.

    Caleb spreads out his silver thread. As he lays the thin line along the cold earth, covered in a rime of frost, he mentally adds people to the exception list. He imagines Beau's betrayed face, Nott's concern, Jester grinning, Fjord rolling his eyes, Yasha's gentle spirit - he leaves Keg off completely. If she leaves, he wants to be able to torch her before she escapes. Her plate metal will heat quickly and cook her inside, _schnell_. He hesitates - then he adds Kiri to the spell, and, after a deep breath, one that doesn't matter anymore. 

    Every step crunches the ice under his feet, leaving clear footprints. Caleb crawls inside. The night will be cold. If it is very cold, it will help preserve things.

    He carefully arranges his body so he is sitting up, near enough that he would feel warmth if there was any to emit. Instead, it is a void, an absence, the uneasy feeling that there should be something and isn't. Caleb tucks his hands into his coat.

    "This is my fault, you know," he whispers conspiratorially. There's no response. "I recognized the spell. It was much, much too powerful for us. I should have told you all to run. But I thought we could do it. I thought, 'here is a group that can work together. They can do what they try.' I should have said."

    He glances down. One of his pale stiff hands emerges from his coat, traces the air above a gently curving horn. He does not touch.

    "You didn't hear my story. Would you like to? It is- it is not a very good story. The main character is so very stupid. He grew up thinking he was special, and he was, in some ways. It was easy for someone to stroke his ego, to make him believe he was the strongest, the most righteous. You would've hated that guy. He was all rules and order and empire loyalty. And when-" Caleb sucks in a deep breath. "When he was told the smallest lie, he believed it. He believed it and he-" a painful gasp "-he burned his parents to death. What a fool. What a…"

    Caleb won't close his eyes, because he can always see it. He thinks someone else would regret the perfect memory of their entire life going up in flames. He's grateful. He knows exactly what his sin is and how to repent.

    He leans closer, his breath ghosting in white fog as he speaks. "I have not told anyone this, my friend. I am going to- I am going to fix it. I am going manage one perfect thing in my miserable pathetic life and I am going to fix it. Time is only another spell component. They can all be manipulated. I will figure it out. I will save them." His eyes rake over the poorly covered wound. "And I will save you, if this happens again. By then, I will definitely be able to save you."

    Despite his earlier insistance, Caleb finds weariness taking over him. He wriggles down so that he's lying prone with his face turned toward the body. He cannot see very well in the storm-darkened night. Indeed, it's only one of the adornments catching the barest flash of light that lets Caleb make out a horn. He focuses on that.

    "We were a maybe, you think? A possibly. You were so flirtatious with them all, but me too. And I- you. Maybe I should have just, ah, gone for it? Jester would've liked that." As his eyes adjust, he can make out strands of hair and a long nose. He smiles into the darkness. "No. I think not. You were very much of the light. You were effervescence and I was- I am- I am not worth anything, my friend. I am a disgusting waste, and you deserved better than that."

    He fights to keep his eyes open, the view disappearing for longer and longer stretches as his blinks lengthen. It is fitting. Caleb cannot even keep a final vigil for his friend. At least he can disappoint him this one last time.

    "You were really something, Mollymauk," he says, voice cracking on the name. "But now we are the same; you are nothing."

 

    The alarm wakes him. It is still dark out, and - like the idiot he is - he fell asleep without waking anyone for second watch. Caleb scrambles out of the tent and starts spinning up his diamond for a quick spell.

    There's a figure not too far off, tall and cloaked, head hanging low but he can still make out horns. A thrum of worry lances through his body. It can't-

    Caleb sneaks closer. The figure is listing to the side, stumbling as though it cannot figure out how to walk, or is in pain, confusion. Caleb keeps the spell up, but the intent fizzles out and he'll have to use it soon if it's going to have any power at all.

    The figure pauses, then collapses. Caleb's running without realizing it. He stops just short, diamond automatically back in his coat, spell fucking gone.

    "Are you- are you-" his throat is stuck, words useless, fucking useless, always useless, why do you even bother Caleb.

    The figure tenses at the sound. Its head cocks to the side then turns. A single shaft of moonlight pierces the clouds and lights up something awfully familiar. Caleb's on his knees before he knows it's happening. He reaches out.

    The eyes are open. They gleam red. There's a smile snaking over that face and it is so unfamiliar that Caleb jerks back.

    The voice still has that accent, but it's thicker. "Aye, I surely am. Haven't quite met you though, have I? Let's just sit for a spell, then."

    Caleb tries to speak, but his limbs freeze, and the head tilts down, shadows over the eyes in a way he hasn't seen before. He can't fight it, whatever it is.

    "Now, you tell me where we are, and I'll tell them Lucien says you aren't to be harmed. Not right away at least."

    This is exactly where Caleb is supposed to end up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> please someone hold me in these trying times


End file.
